


Gone Too Long

by mydeira



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 15:26:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/pseuds/mydeira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred's thoughts on leaving Pylea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone Too Long

**Author's Note:**

> Written for lyrajane for girlflesh’s Fred Ficathon (on LiveJournal in March of 2004) whose request was for Fred in Pylea.

She was leaving Pylea.  Today she was leaving and going back to LA.  Home.  Well, the last place she lived before coming here, so she guessed that was the closest thing to home she had.  There was her parents’ place back in Texas, but that really wasn’t home.  She’d left, hadn’t she?  Not home in the technical sense, but LA was where she belonged, the world she was from, the world in which she wasn’t a cow but Winifred Burkle, graduate student in the UCLA physics department.  But she wasn’t that anymore either, was she?  It had been five years, so it wasn’t likely the university had kept her place.  For all they knew she was dead.  She giggled.  Nope, not dead.  Suddenly it didn’t seem that funny anymore.  She might not be dead, but she could possibly be dreaming.

 

“Fred?” a voice asked with concern.

 

Fred blinked from her reverie and smiled at her hero.  “I’m fine, Angel,” she replied, a hint of uncertainty in the reply, testing out the words.  That sounded okay.  Maybe she could do this after all.  Go back.  To where she belonged.

 

“Are you sure?  You just seemed kind of sad,” he tried again.

 

“Sad?  Why would I be sad?” she forced another wide smile.  “I just didn’t want to intrude.  You’ve got your friends back and I just, well, thought you’d all want some time together.”

 

“It’s alright to be nervous,” Angel said, holding her gaze.

 

“Oh, I...” Fred looked away.  Was it that obvious?  Maybe she couldn’t do this after all.  She’d been gone five years.  A lot happens in five years.  She wasn’t the same girl.  Did she even really belong there anymore?  Not that things were great here or anything, but she knew this, knew the rules here.  She didn’t know that other life anymore.  She had difficulty remembering what it was like.

 

“It’s just going to take some getting used to,” she said finally.

 

“You won’t be alone, you know.”

 

Of course.  They wouldn’t just abandon her, but it wasn’t like she expected them to be her friends or anything.  She barely knew them.  Plus, how would she fit in with a bunch of warriors?  Fred doubted they had much use for science in their line of work.  But Angel and his friends were really the only people she knew from back there anymore.  Her parents and the professors and the few friends she had probably all thought she was dead.  Her parents?  What would they think?

 

“I’ll be fine, Momma,” she had said.  This is what she’d wanted to do her entire life.  So what if was her first time in a big city?  If she could deal with cows, she could deal with this.  “How much trouble can I get into working at a lab.  I probably won’t see anything else I’ll be so busy.”

_“Things are different out there in California.  No telling what those people will do,” her mother frowned.  “There’s still time to reconsider the University of Texas.”_

_Fred shook her head.  “No, it’s time I got out of Texas, saw some of the world.  This isn’t where I belong.”  She saw her mother stiffen at the words.  “I didn’t mean it like that, Momma.  It’s just...oh, I don’t know.  Sometimes you have to leave to find yourself, you know?  And I want to find myself.”_

 

Maybe Momma hadn’t been so paranoid after all.  Fred wound up in a hell dimension, treated as a slave before escaping to live alone in a cave.  Well, at least she wasn’t knocked up or anything.  Things could always be worse.

 

Wow, she hadn’t thought about Momma or home or anything from before in a long time.  Momma used to have this look that...a look that you didn’t cross but...Fred could no longer picture what that look had been.  She had trouble remembering what her mother or father had even looked like.  Daddy had blue eyes and Momma...Momma had brown hair.  But...how could she not remember her parents?  She couldn’t go back.  It had been too long.  If she couldn’t remember her parents, what else had she forgotten?  Burritos, she liked burritos, didn’t she?  Those were, um...she felt herself begin to panic.  Burritos were meat and beans and...there were in something...what were they in?

 

“I don’t even remember what a burrito is!” she squeaked.  “I used to eat them all the time and Momma’d yell at me.  But what did she look like?  Angel?” she looked at her friend with tears in her eyes.  “How can I go back if I don’t remember?”

 

“It’s okay,” Angel said, taking her hand uncomfortably.  “It takes time, but it will come back.”

 

“What if it doesn’t?  I—I can’t g-go back,” Fred choked back her tears.  “Please, just leave me here.  I know this life.  I—I just can’t—I...you’re all so kind and all but...”

 

“Fred, hey,” he wiped away her tears.  “I’m not saying it will be easy, but take it from me, it does get better.  You just have to take it one step at a time.”

 

“You’re so sweet,” she smiled faintly.  “Why are you so sweet to me?”

 

“I... uh,” Angel fidgeted.  “I like to help my friends.”

 

“I’m your friend?”

 

“Well, you did help me when I was a big scary monster.  You didn’t have to.  I think that makes you a friend,” he forced a smile.

 

“I guess it does, doesn’t it,” Fred agreed hesitantly, still not entirely sure of things.  She drew a deep breath, “Okay, maybe I can do this.”

 

“We’ll all be here for you,” he added.

 

Fred smiled, seeing one of Angel’s friends approach.  The British one, what was his name?  “I think, um, Wesley wants to talk to you.”

 

The two went off, leaving Fred alone in her corner to think.  She had one friend.  That was a start, right?  Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.  The others seemed nice enough.  Wesley seemed like a gentleman and Charles had a smile that made her go all warm.  She was looking forward to getting to know Lorne; it was good to know everyone from here wasn’t bad.  And Cordelia...it had been awhile since she’d had a girl friend, not that Cordelia was the type of girl she would have hung out with before.  She would take some getting used to, but Fred didn’t think things would be too bad between them.  You never knew unless you gave someone a chance right?

 

Fred wasn’t one to give up when the going got rough, was she?  Wouldn’t have survived five years here if she had been.  Besides, how bad could things in LA be, after what she had seen here?

 

“Fred, are you ready to go?” Angel asked quietly.

 

Taking a deep breath, Fred nodded.  Yeah, she was ready to go.  Well, as ready as she could be.  She flashed a bright smile at the group when she joined them.  It wasn’t going to be easy, but maybe she wasn’t going to be alone anymore.  And maybe that would make all the difference. 


End file.
